If running for a good cause weren't reason enough, participants in Saturday's Zombie Run in downtown Pensacola had the added incentive of a horde of brain-hungry undead pursuing them toward the finish line.

About 500 people took part in the second Zombie Run 5K, which is put on by the team behind Pensacola's biggest pop culture gathering, Pensacon, and benefits Manna Food Pantries, whose main facility was heavily damaged in the April flood. The first Zombie Run was held in February ahead of the first-ever Pensacon.

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Check out what happened when Pensacon unleashed the walking dead into the streets of downtown Pensacola in a benefit for Manna Food Pantries.
Julio Diaz/jdiaz@pnj.com

"We were hit hard by the flood too so we wanted to do something to give back as much as we can," said organizer Will Phillips. "This is the third or fourth donation we'll make to them this year."

Participants who donated nonperishable food items to Manna received $1 off their race fees per item, to a maximum of 10 items.

Runners started from Seville Square and traversed around Veterans Memorial Park, down Bayfront Parkway to Baylen Street, then from Baylen down Government Street back to the park, encountering a mob of zombies in zones spaced about every kilometer.

Runners swerved and spun to avoid having their pink ribbons snatched from their waists by the zombies, signifying they had been infected. One of those zombies, 11-year-old Sadie Epstien had an armful of pink ribbons by the time the last runner crossed the finish line.

"They were spinning a lot so I tried spinning and ended up get a lot of them," she said.

West Florida High School cross country runner Bob Vadnais was the first person to finish the run, crossing the finish line a little after 15 minutes of the start, though without his pink ribbons.

"I hadn't done this one before and it seemed like it might be fun," he said. "They got me in zone one and zone three, those were the bottlenecks."

The Zombie Run was the first of three events Pensacon organizers will host in November. The Pensacola Pop Expo will be a street fair featuring "Ghostbusters" star Ernie Hudson on Nov.15, and a "Back to the Eighties" dance party is set for Nov. 21 at Vinyl Music Hall.